Vietnam (35) Day 33 (1.3.2012)

I am loosing track of the days. Today was an easy start at 11am. I must get out of the homestay before Tom and Jerry starts, otherwise little messyfish insists that he watch it. It is maybe a 1 hour or 2 hour block of shows, and I get very hungry and frustrated whilst he is happy to sit and watch. Some days its a big struggle to get him to come out of the homestay room. I dont blame him. We can spend days on end at home, inside. But the difference is, I have cooking, cleaning, and lots of other things to do at home. So does he. He likes to spend time indoors, he has bought lots of toys and plays with them too, but i dont have much I want to do. I want to get out and about and see whats going on. I could get settled into a novel or my art more, but the pull to go out and see whats going on is very strong.

Playing with the containers the local m and m's come in. He ate a lot of these sweets.

Local  m and m's come in these plastic tubes. They became building blocks...

Days spent inside, eating lollies and watching you tube, not the whitling of sticks in the dirt outside thatched huts that I imagined!

More cartoons on you tube, with his plastic trumpet for blasting annoying people away from him when on the streets. The WiFi in Vietnam has been amazing!

We rode our bike into town. Little messyfish stopped for 3 iceblocks on the way. One of them was left in the gutter. We could not read the label but I am pretty sure it was a durian flavoured icecream. I finally made it to the food stall inside the market that I love for lunch. I had a plate of mixed food. chicken, pork, egg noodles, rice, vegetables etc, with chilli sauce. it cost d30.000. Thats about $1.30.

Then we went to the tourist restaurand called "Treats Cafe", where little messyfish ordered a margharita pizza and played with the pool table to his hearts content. It was relaxing and enjoyable. the vietnamese staff are very tolerant of little tourist kids, and the space in the restaurant was large, so little messyfish could move around freely, and I did not have to keep my eye on him every second of the day. We were the only customers in there, and most days we visited we were the only customers. Perhaps this is restaurant is busy at night? I have no idea how it stays open if its not! However, it was a big relief to have some space, and we ended up coming to this restaurant a lot because of the large open space within the restaurant, well away from the streets.

After that i searched for a belt to keep my pants up. everyone I asked wanted to charge me $25 US dollars. In the land of the cheapest everything ever, a $25 belt seems way out of whack. So i didnt buy one. Then little messy fish fell asleep, so i put him in the ergo, and went to the riverside cafe for a nice cold sugar cane juice and a cafe sua da whilst he slept i watched the boast come and top. It was lovely and thouroughly enjoyable, especially talking to the locals whilst Little messyfish slept close to my chest, nice and safe.
On the ride back to our homestay, i bought a belt in a locals shop for d30,000. thats less than $2. it fell apart withing 4 weeks, but that didnt matter. i got to hold my pants up so i got another pants option, so i got to wash the others more often.I also bought some banans and some green mangoes. Little messyfish had a massive melt down over a pillow he wanted to buy, then didnt want, after i spent a long time negotiating the price. I just thought no worries, I will take ithome anyhow and give it to someone else. but OH NO! little messyfish wanted me to give it back. But I felt bad, and did not want them to loose the sale they had made. Anyhow, I ended having him refuse to get back in the bike seat and refuse to move. I sat down on the curb and burst out crying. the bike fell over and our shopping fell out. Little messyfish stormed through the market and gave the pillow back to the women. After i was stared at by EVERYONE and the market came to a complete standstill, a very kind pregnant woman came up tp me and said that she new it was hard and that little children can be hard work. I felt better and she helped me up. I was so embarrassed, but little messyfish got back in the bike, with pillow and we rode home. I now have a book title and a great opening story. I was thinking of staying on, but I asked Linh for the big room with private bathroom, and I can not get it, its booked. I am also sick of being overcharged and always being treated like a foreigner on the streets too. before I go, I want to get some outfits made though! This is a town full of tailors...